This year, wood floor­ing brand Ted Todd cel­e­brates its 25th an­niver­sary. We sit down for a chat with its founder, Robert Walsh

When I was younger, my dad gave me some old floor­boards to re­store. I was able to sell them in the lo­cal news­pa­per to some­one work­ing on a barn con­ver­sion project. Where do you source your reclaimed wood from? Much of it is taken from pre19th-cen­tury build­ings in the UK, such as schools, ware­houses and hos­pi­tals. We re­cently reclaimed some wood from the War Of­fice in White­hall. As we only re­claim the best wood that we can find, it tends to come from places with his­tor­i­cal merit. You were known for your reclaimed floors, so why the move into new ones? Peo­ple kept ask­ing for reclaimed oak floor­boards, but we couldn’t find enough to meet de­mand, so we de­cided to make new ones our­selves us­ing tra­di­tional ma­chin­ery and meth­ods. At the time, no other com­pany in the coun­try was man­u­fac­tur­ing wide-plank floors like we were. What do you love about work­ing with wood? As a ma­te­rial, it stands the test of time. Reclaimed wood also has a unique beauty to it, which can be re­ally cap­ti­vat­ing. Restor­ing and find­ing a new home for it is a hugely ful­fill­ing process (ted­todd.co.uk).